Skullcandy Presents the 2012 TransAm Finals at Bear Mountain

The TransWorld SNOWboarding TransAm presented by Skullcandy turned ten this season and Clayton Shoemaker made sure this contest wasn’t going to get old. Shoemaker and the Bear Mountain Park Crew once again proved why they are some of the best park builders around. Sure, you can look back three years ago just after Shoemaker won the best park of TransAm award, when Chris Castaneda walked away with the award and squelched any hopes of Bear winning the award for consecutive years. Shoemaker doesn’t like losing nor does he like to accept anything other than the best. He returned the next season to take the award back. With Castaneda’s win for Northstar, it left the door open for Jeremy Cooper to change the game and take home the award for Park City. In all honesty, Cooper did change the game last year and pushed Northstar and Bear to do the same. This season the showdown continued between all three resorts and Shoemaker watched every single video of the TransAm parks on twsnow.com. He started his park build on the Monday before the contest and this time one-upped his showing from last year of features you could ride through the middle, like the huge bear head made of snow.

This TransAm final was huge because of Shoemaker and the Bear Park Crew along with the one hundred and nine competitors. The Bear Park Crew made a huge skate bowl out of the abundant snow in the plaza. There were two tunnels through the backside of the bowl that riders could ride through and gain speed into the transition on the other side or, alternatively, ride the rail that was in the middle of one of the tunnels. This might seem like crazy talk to most, but you really had to see it to believe it. One rider that did believe was Cody Lee as he earned himself a ticket to finals placing second at Park City and doing the same at Bear. He is being flown out to Quebec, Canada for the Ride Shakedown after being crowned the 2012 TransAM Overall Tour Champion. One gal that wasn’t afraid to hit the Skullcandy Sound Tube that bridged a gap over one of the tunnels on the deck of the bowl was Mariah Dugan. She took first in Northstar and rode that win all the way into first place at Bear and as well as girls Overall TransAM Champion. Dugan was fitted head to toe in Ride Snowboards gear. The Coal Headwear snow beanie was sitting on top of a double-headed dragon carved out of snow with its sharp teeth showing. In its mouth was one of the Ride Snowboards smoking barrels. There was a jump over the beanie that Sisi Lauretti front flipped over. Lenny Mazzotti took the road less traveled and hit the jump from the side, gapping down to the smoking barrel deep in the mouth of the dragon. The Anon Optics closeout rail owned most of the riding field except for Dillon Guenther, who spun cab onto the rail and kept spinning off the rail continuing to the Zumiez Bank to cash out his Zumiez one thousand dollar check for best trick. Jeromie Nolan sent it deep into the blue sky above as he used the Giro Helmets hip as his launch pad and also showed the crowd he’s one hundred percent snowboarding through the High Cascade Snowboard Camps pole jams. One of the HCSC pole jams was set up on the far end behind the bowl so that you could launch over the deck and into the transition inside the bowl.

Drew Brighton turned heads all over the mini park as he was gapping over the Muscle Milk rail tunnel and landing on the downside of the Coal jump. He earned himself two hundred dollars from Muscle Milk for tricks like that, among many others in his repertoire. The Zumiez couch was set up on the coping of the bowl and riders were flipping over it and onto the deck or hand planting it pushing themselves back into the transition of the bowl. All in all the Bear Bowl changed the way TransAm Parks would be built again and I am looking forward to another season of creative park building.

The contest ended with hot dogs and chips for everyone along with awesome prizes from all of our sponsors. Skullcandy kept the beats pumping with custom TransAm headphones. Ride Snowboards gave outerwear and snowboards to the winners as well as Ride Shakedown invitations to the overall tour winners. Coal Headwear kept heads warm with custom TransAm beanies. Giro Helmets kept everyone safely jibbing with custom TransAm helmets. Drop gloves covered the high fiving hands of all the competitors and High Cascade Snowboard Camp gave out backpacks to keep all these awesome prizes in. Anon Optics made sure to keep the sun out of everyone’s eyes with some awesome goggles and Zumiez handed out the gift cards for various amounts of purchasing fun. The Muscle Milk award was presented to Drew Brighton in the form of two hundred dollars and the Zumiez best trick couch check of one thousand dollars went to Dillion Guenther. Another chapter in the book of TransAm has come to an end with other amateur contest series taking notes. Let’s just hope they use the proper referencing in their bibliographies.